Easy Sorting/Matching Game

When my mom was visiting, she picked up this container of beads for the kids from Hobby Lobby.  It has beads of all shapes, colors, sizes, etc. including a bunch of animals!

We have had more fun with these beads than I ever imagined we would!!!  Stringing them, sorting them, gluing them, picking them up with tweezers, etc.  We're always coming up with new uses for them!  One day, they were busy painting and I was cleaning stuff up and saw this huge stack of ice cube trays sitting on top of the fridge and voila...

Instant matching game!

I thought I'd help make it easier on the kids and put one of each pair of beads in the ice cube tray and then give them a container with just the other ones in...so all they had to do was put it in the right spot.

Liliana LOVED this and did great at it!  
Micah disgustedly retorted, "Come on mom, this isn't even challenging for me!"  Well okay then.

So then I went with the whole, just put a handful of beads out and they can find their own matches.  That kept Micah entertained for a lot longer.  Until.......

Of course she did!  What the heck was I thinking leaving the entire container open and within reach?!?!  Picking everything up pretty much killed the rest of our activity time.  But the lesson learned (other than putting the beads up high) is that ice cube trays make GREAT matching/sorting containers.  You could use them with all kinds of materials...a nature theme (match the rocks, sticks, shells, etc.), food (make pairs of raspberries, blueberries, etc.), fun foam shapes, legos, coins......lots of possibilities.  Another idea would be to put numbers in the top row and then have them count the matching number of beads into the spot below it.  Ice cube trays...who knew???